


Apparently We're Good for Something After All

by deb-indycar-fan (debirlfan)



Category: Humans Are Space Orcs (Meme)
Genre: Alien Biology, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debirlfan/pseuds/deb-indycar-fan
Summary: I never believed in flying saucers. I laughed at those who thought the government was covering up their existence. Then the Grey saucer crashed in the middle of Times Square.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Juletide 2020





	Apparently We're Good for Something After All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



The Patriot's latest quarterback was no Brady. Instead of throwing it away, he hesitated and held onto the ball for a beat too long, with predictable results. He crashed to the ground beneath a sea of blue jerseys. 

“Oh!” I heard the horrified gasp from behind me.

I twisted to see the figure standing behind me. The braided green and white ribbons of the sash looped across the spindly torso told me it was Dau. Without the sash I wouldn't have known. Somehow the Greys could identify one another; the sashes and other adornments they now sported were only for our benefit.

Dau's eyes, seeming larger than ever, were fixed on the screen. “Is he dead?” Dau asked in a hushed voice.

I glanced toward the receiver, where the medical staff had come onto the field and was assisting the player. They were helping him to his feet. “He's fine.” I told Dau. That might not have been quite accurate, as the quarterback was stumbling and seemed pretty groggy, but I wasn't about to try to explain concussion syndrome to an alien.

“So what's up?” I asked. I knew Dau wouldn't be bothering me on what was supposed to be my day off unless there was an issue.

“Teka tried to adjust the environmental controls.”

Dau hadn't voiced it, but I could hear the “again” at the end of the sentence just as clearly as if he had. I cursed under my breath as I grabbed the remote and switched the game off, only somewhat mollified by the knowledge that it would record and I could watch it later. 

By the time I'd gathered my toolkit and followed Dau to environmental, the cleanup crew was nearly finished, and the haze of acrid smoke had mostly dissipated. The panel beneath the main console was still open, and a quick look confirmed that Teka had shorted out a secondary circuit. Those long, grey fingers could get themselves into an amazing amount of trouble.

The repair took less than half an hour, and would have been even faster without the handful of Greys anxiously watching over my shoulder, apparently worried that I would electrocute myself the way Teka had. They needn't have worried. While they might be FTL, the Aganian spaceships were extremely simple to maintain. Unless, of course, you were a Grey. 

It was still hard to comprehend how an entire species could have absolutely no aptitude for any sort of mechanical engineering, but, it was true. Their intelligence and talents had gone in a different direction, that of biological engineering. Instead of changing the world around them, they had changed themselves.

As I was finishing up and replacing the missing panel, I heard murmurs behind me. I turned to see that Teka had returned. As expected, he appeared little the worse for the wear, short of some scorching on his green and yellow sash. When he saw me, he dipped his head in embarrassment. 

“Teka, didn't I tell you not to mess with this?” I hated yelling at the Greys, it felt too much like yelling at a little kid. But, it had to be done. “One of these days you're going to manage to burn out your Chakarna, and then where will you be?”

If a Grey could blanch, Teka did at that suggestion. “I won't touch anything again, I promise!”

“See that you don't.” I gathered up my tools and headed back to my quarters, hoping to catch the end of the game.

The Chakarna was what made the Greys truly alien, and indirectly was what had led to the human masses learning of their existence. It was, for want of a better description, a combination of brain, organic thumb drive, and airliner black box. It was what made a Grey the individual that they were, and it was very nearly indestructible. In short, it was immortality, or at least something very close to it.

When a Grey “died” it was the duty of others to remove the Chakarna. If there was a shell – what we would call a clone – available, it would be placed immediately, and the individual would be back within minutes. If no shell was available, the Chakarna would simply enter stasis until one was. The line of waiting shells still gave me the creeps. It was one part of the ship I seldom visited.

The Greys didn't build their own ships, they bought them from the Aganians. The ships came with what amounted to instruction manuals, not that the manuals actually helped. Grey ships traveled in groups. If one ship failed, the crew of another would recover the Chakarnas. 

I never believed in flying saucers. I laughed at those who thought the government was covering up their existence. Then the Grey saucer crashed in the middle of Times Square. Times Square isn't some desert town in New Mexico. Even so, the government might have managed to explain away the crashed ship as experimental military, if the second ship hadn't landed soon after.

A fair number of people were terrified, and as it turned out, the Greys were actually terrified of us. They had intercepted human media for years, and they understood that we were built differently. For humans, death was permanent, and yet, most of us pushed ahead, not fearing our eventual demise.

I can't say that even now we really understand each other, but we've learned to work together. They've taught us a great deal of biological engineering, how to treat and even prevent many illnesses and conditions. In exchange, we've joined them among the stars, filling the rolls they cannot. That's how a backwoods mechanic from Georgia ended up maintaining a starship.

Dau followed me back to my quarters. He watched the final minutes of the game with me, both horrified and fascinated by the physicality of football, and the perceived danger to the players.

I can't wait to introduce him to the Daytona 500.


End file.
